Autotomy
by TragedyBoner
Summary: Alex owes it all to Justin. Evil!Alex. Warnings for incest, self-harm, and death of at least one main character. Jalex.
1. You've Got My Soul

_tittle:_ Autotomy

_chapter tittle:_ Part One (of two)

_fandom:_ Wizards of Waverly Place

_pairing:_ Jalex (Justin/Alex)

_rating:_ T

_warnings:_ Incest, self-harm, later homocide of a main character, and vague mentions of the new Wizards movie but no major spoilers. Fun!

_summary:_ Alex owes it all to Justin.

---

It turned out that being evil wasn't all that entirely different from how she always acted.

It was convenient, she supposed, especially in retrospect, that being evil and being cruel were actually quite similar. In both situations you would have to possess a guilt-free attitude about whatever cruel, cunning, and selfish things you were planning on doing to accomplish a task.

Luckily, Alex had already known very well how to be those things.

The only difference now was that she was _all_ guilt-free. She wasn't sympathetic. She didn't apologize, regret, or make excuses. She executed everything she did perfectly.

She was a great wizard. She always had been. Though, she did owe most of her power and excellence now to Justin, in all fairness.

Not that Alex was ever _fair_.

---

The first mistake was in the lair, late at night. Justin was studying to get ahead and Alex was watching him. They'd only been home from their family vacation for a few days and he was already back to learning and memorizing.

It was sad, really.

"Hey, Justin?" Alex asked, propping her chin against her palm. Her hair was in a loose pony-tail, messy and wavy from leaving it un-brushed for the day.

"Mmm?" Justin was still scanning the pages of a heavy volume in front of him, old and fading. His face was tired and drawn, pale and old-looking. He was aging faster than she was, somehow.

"Did you really mean what you said before?" She crossed her legs under her in the chair she occupied, tilting her head forward to hear him mumble.

He looked up, which surprised Alex. "Mean what?"

"You said that you would never leave me. Did you mean it?" She waited. He kept his face smooth and unreadable when he finally answered.

"I also said that we need each other. I meant that too."

Before it registered in her head what she was doing, Alex had already gotten out of her chair, walked up to him on the opposite side of the table he was reading at, and leaned closer, using her elbows for support.

He looked up, startled.

"We _do_ need each other. You promise me that you'll never leave me?" She questioned.

"Never," he replied, like it was a given. Like he didn't even have to think about it.

Then she brushed her lips against his. She didn't know why, exactly, only that she felt like she should, so she did. She'd never been much for thinking before she acted anyhow.

Ten minutes later, Alex was on her back on the lair's couch, under Justin's chest and fast-beating heart.

Her's was vibrating madly too.

She should have known better.

---

Alex played with the tip of the blade of her knife. It glided back and forth against her pale and untouched skin, unmarked since their blowout three years earlier.

She remembered it like it was yesterday. But then, she'd used a spell to mark it permanently in her head so she'd never forget. Ronald had told her that getting something etched into your brain like that would make it so you could always have it in the back of your mind, reminding you of what you lost and why you were on the path you were on.

He was still a stupid, senseless prat. But that time he had been right.

Now, she dove the blade in quick and deep. It was a good spot. It wouldn't bleed out but it would sting and make her eyes white out just enough for her to go through with it after.

_This pain_, she told herself, _is what he did. He made you feel like this. _

She pulled it out before she she could lose sight of where she was.

---

After two months of sneaking around and making people suspicious, Alex was tired of it. She suspected that Justin was tired of it too. He was angry more often, and even more tired than he had been before.

It worried her.

That night, when the clock struck midnight and her parents were safely tucked into bed, she slipped out of her bedroom, closed the door gently behind her, tip-toed across the hall to her brother's room, and inched her way to his bed before pulling back the covers just enough to ease herself in and curl beside him, face to face.

Breath slipped out of her mouth like she'd been holding it in forever.

Justin's eyes were open, probably had been open for awhile, and he was staring at her.

She fell asleep with her arms touching his and her cheek against his pillow, listening to his breathing, even and sure.

When she woke up, he was gone and the alarm was going off, loud and obnoxious.

---

Alex walked purposely into the lair, _her _lair, the one in her apartment's secret space. Well, it was more of a dungeon. Not that that mattered.

Justin was already in there. She snorted. He was reading a book that was thick and probably ancient. Typical. She closed in, pulling her cloak more tightly around herself and steadying her footsteps.

He looked even older. He _was_ older. He was only twenty and he looked practically thirty. Worn out and weak, he looked completely innocent. For a second, for a minute maybe, she found herself wanting to reach out, not to harm him, but to rub his shoulders or play with the hair that was tangled on the top of his head like she used to when he was eighteen years old and she was only sixteen.

Then, with a rush of blood to her head, she bit her lip. Hard.

"Justin," she said, low and deadly.

He looked up, startled.

Some things never change.

---

"Alex, you know I love you. More than anything. More than anyone."

Justin was rubbing her arms, up and down. He was giving her one of his patented _'you should already know why, you're a grown up' _speeches. She hated them. They made her feel young and stupid and inadequate.

She kept her head down, eyes on her new shoes. They cost her her whole month's paycheck at the sub station but she loved them. They were scuffed already, though, right on the heel, from Justin stepping on the back of one of them by accident.

"Alex?"

"I know."

"I'm going to college in three weeks. You know this. You agreed to this. You'll follow me there in two years, right?"

"Right," she nodded.

"Don't look so sad. This is what we both wanted," he tells her soft, and yet, still impatient.

She doesn't say another word. She doubted he'd hear her anyway.


	2. I've Got Your Heart

_tittle:_ Autotomy

_chapter tittle:_ Part Two (of two)

_fandom:_ Wizards of Waverly Place

_pairing:_ Jalex (Justin/Alex)

_rating:_ T

_warnings:_ Incest, self-harm, homicide of a main character, and vague mentions of the new Wizards movie but no major spoilers. Still fun!

_summary:_ Alex owes it all to Justin.

_---_

'Autotomy'_ -- the spontaneous casting off of a limb or other body part _(such as a heart)_..._ _especially when the organism is injured or under attack._

_("_Autotomy_" by The Dears was inspiration for the tittle)_

---

_This is how it all started out_, she remembered, quite clearly. The heartbreak, the feeling of someone slicing through her skin, pulling apart her chest, gouging out her heart, and proceeding to leave the blood spilling out everywhere without even bothering to close it back up again. It all started _here_.

Justin. He_ made _her this way.

"Alex? I didn't see you there." He jumped out of his chair like it was on fire.

She smirked, red lips curling up in a perfect impression of her wicked teenage years of fooling around with her brother, sneaking off to college parties to see her brother, and lying to her parents _because_ of her brother.

"I'm glad you came. Remember when I told you I was moving here? What, you don't recall all the happy memories?" She played on, messing with his mind. Like he used to do to her.

His eyes widened and he was instantly sent toppling backwards into all of their old memories, she was sure. The good ones, the bad. It was unimportant which ones he was seeing. In a minute, all he would be seeing was blood.

His own.

"Alex?" He said.

She took a step closer.

---

All it took for her to forgive him this time, like all the other times, was his touch, his kiss. He laid a hand above her heart and her skin there seemed to pulse beneath it. Maybe it was just the magic moving between them. Alex liked to think that they were connected like that.

"Sorry," he whispered into her neck.

Her eyes fluttered shut. She went limp on his dorm sheets, freshly washed and bright white. He was smiling into her skin.

The bastard. He _knew_ he always won.

_One day_, she dreamed nonsensically, _she would surpass him at _something. _She would make him know that he wasn't as all-powerful as he believed he was._

Unfortunately, that day hadn't come yet. His hand came up behind her to support her neck as he drained her soul, second by second.

She could feel herself drifting slowly away.

---

One day, one fine day, Alex sat down in the liar before her senior year started. She thought about Justin and his schoolwork, how it was starting to count for more than his wizardry. She'd secretly always wanted to win full powers. She'd felt that power, the surge of golden light radiating out from her body that one time and she wanted to feel it again.

She picked up a book, curled up in her chair and read.

And when she thought she might fall asleep, she felt her nails dig roughly into her skin and her eyes flew back open.

It wasn't healthy, but it _was_ effective.

---

By the time she was ready to graduate with passing marks, she had learned every spell in the books her father kept around the lair and then some. She'd re-read the forbidden spells after snatching it out of her father's hiding spot. _A hollow book, please_, she'd thought. It was the only one on the shelf that still looked brand new.

The competition would be in just a few weeks. Justin, because she'd skillfully crafted prom committee meetings that she never attended and shopping trips with Harper that she never went on, and hadn't seen him in weeks, probably wasn't suspecting that she'd been studying.

He once said that _knowing_ spells wasn't enough. That she had just _known_ what to do without the thought process and he hadn't, couldn't.

She wondered if he still thought she could beat him.

She supposed he was planing on taking it easy on her.

---

When she reached the ball of light, the blindingly bright little thing, she'd smiled. A real smile. Not the kind she used when Justin asked her if she was alright, fake and small, but a full-on lip-tugging, face-aching one that made her feel special and powerful and _in control_.

When she caught Justin's envious and betrayed glare, she'd stopped smiling.

Instead of doing what she normally would in this sort of situation (apologize extensively in quiet undertones under the watch of their parents), she ignored him and ran to the opposite side of the field to take Max by the hand and check on his bruises.

When she caught Justin's defeated stance from one hundred yards away, she looked back at her other brother who lightly brushed a hand over his bloodied forehead and she almost wished that he'd won instead of her.

_That way_, she thought pathetically, _Justin couldn't be mad at _me_._

_---_

"Alex?"

"Yes, Justin?" She asked, politely. Respectively.

"What are you doing with that?" He guestered to her hand and the object in it, silver and sharp and lethal.

"Oh, this?" She laughed and took another step towards her flesh and blood brother.

"Alex," he warned, back against the wall.

"What?" She asked with a confused expression, dropping the knife back to her waist. She leaned into his personal space, placing one hand against the wall beside him so he couldn't run.

"I-"

"Don't understand?" She asked. She sighed like she was annoyed by his questions. "You haven't seen me in a few years. It must be quite a shock. I cut my hair, you know. Do you like it?"

No response. He looked at her like she was a crazy person. She decided to continue, voice rising and knife balancing between her fingertips.

"I want you to feel like I felt all those years, Justin. I want _you_ to feel your heart being torn out."

His eyes were a gateway to his soul, just like that saying goes. It was true, she _could_ see his soul. And it was scared shitless.

"But, Alex... _we need each other_." It was a soft plea, broken in many places, and his eyes were glassy and almost flowing out.

Too bad he was tearing up because he was scared to die, not because he didn't want to lose her.

"You lied, Justin. You told me that you'd never leave me. You said that you loved me more than anything else."

"I meant that," he insisted, tears falling down his face, sparkling and twinkling.

"No, you _didn't_."

"I did!" He persisted.

She raised the knife now, leaning the tip very lightly on his pale, also untouched skin. It was the skin just under his Adam's apple. Her lips curled and she bit the bottom one once more for good luck.

"You didn't," she said firmly. "If you had you would have fought for me, been proud of me, showed it in a way that wasn't sexual."

"We _need_ each other, Alex," he tried one last time. Even his voice betrayed him. He knew it wasn't going to work. He knew it was over before he'd even tried to convince her not to.

She raised her eyes so they were looking straight into his. She saw fear, guilt, and apology. But she didn't see love.

"I don't need you anymore," she said and plunged the knife into his skin, deeper than she ever had her own and into a place where he _would_ bleed out. She watched his eyes go black and his body begin to slump so she took a hold of his forearm. When he stopped breathing and his heart finally stopped beating, she let go of her hold on his arm and saw him fall to the floor in a messy, bloody heap.

_There_, she thought._ Now he knows what it feels like to have your heart carved out and tossed away._

Then she left the room, closed it up for good, and called her real estate agent.

"Harper? Yeah, it's me. I decided that I _would_ like to buy that apartment in Brooklyn. I'm going to pursue art after all."

Pause.

"Justin?" She asked in mock surprise. "No," she answered, shaking her head even though she knew Harper couldn't see her. "No, I haven't seen him lately. Not in three years. Strange, though. I was just reminiscing."


	3. While The World Falls Apart

_tittle:_ Autotomy

_chapter tittle:_ While The World Falls Apart (of two, supposedly)

_fandom:_ Wizards of Waverly Place

_pairing:_ Jalex (Justin/Alex)

_rating:_ T

_warnings:_ Incest, self-harm, possible homicide of a main character, and vague mentions of the new Wizards movie but no major spoilers. Still fun!

_summary:_ Alex owes it all to Justin.

_A/N:_ So, I was completely done with this fic but some of you guys really wanted more and subscribed to me and messaged me to prove it, which made me feel a bit guilty since I had no future plans for it, but in the end I wrote this which is _just_ as messed up as the rest of this fic if I do say so myself! And maybe I'll even write more after this. We'll see.

**IMPORTANT NOTICE:** This chapter was cut off not only to build suspense, but to get **your** opinion. If you had it your way, would you rather **(A)** Alex died, **(B)** Harper died, **(C)** Neither died and they went on to get revenge on those who deserve it, or **(D)** Somehow, Alex and Justin end up together even though he supposedly died. I'm asking you because I have no idea which route to take and I really want **your** input. This story, if chosen to, might be able to continue into something a little longer. But it's up to you!

_---_

"Alex, I'm so proud of you. I wasn't sure if you would be able to do it, to be completely honest."

"Stow it, Ronald. I didn't do it for you."

"Alex, I was merely giving you a compliment. I remember how well you used to take them." Ronald stood perfectly still in the corner of the room with his arms folded over his chest, speaking in a light, almost cheerful manner.

"What? In Wiz Tech when you tricked me into turning evil with you?" She pulled the curtains shut inside her apartment, dark maroon shutting out all the light. Then she snapped her fingers above a candle and it instantly flickered to life.

He laughed shortly. "Would it be so wrong of me to say that I could tell you had potential even then?"

Alex walked over to him, light footsteps over hardwood floors in her bare feet. When she held the candle up to his face, he grinned. Taking a step forward, he ran a hand through her black bob, tucking some of it behind her ear.

"You're lucky I still hang around you, Longcape," she whispered.

"Who else would let you use their forbidden spell book?" He let her pull his neck down to meet her lips with his because he knew she had control issues. _Well, who didn't?_

---

"So, this is the first bedroom, the master," Harper pointed out, stepping into the room. The room had a slanted ceiling where the one window was. It would let in very little light and the walls, she was already imaging in her mind to be painted black. Then, she would put up candles everywhere and make the closet larger, maybe put a magic censor outside of the door to ward off other wizards.

"Do you like the place so far, Alex? I thought that old tub with the silver feet was a nice touch."

Alex nodded. "It's very old fashioned. I love the ceiling."

"The slanted ceiling is always a favorite.... Alex? Can I ask you something? It's sort of off topic." Harper leaned against the wall next to the door frame and let her long, red hair cover some of her pale, freckled face.

Alex turned, whipping round hard on her heels. Keeping her expression plain, she nodded. "Sure, Harper."

"Why did you and Justin stop speaking?"

Alex felt a flutter in her stomach, thinking of her brother. She saw his face, eyes wide and felt his skin, ice cold, covered in goosebumps. "We had a falling out after the competition. It wasn't really either of our faults. I think that both of us just didn't take the time to fix things." She had to make Harper believe that they had a clean break just in case. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason. Did you want to see the parking lot space downstairs next? It comes with an extra closet." Harper gave a strange little knowing smile and Alex followed, thinking about filling it with spell books and wands and the occasional knife or two.

---

"So, Alex," Teresa Russo began in an excited tone, "I hear you just bought a new apartment closer to home. You'll be able to come to dinner more often!"

Alex smiled sickly sweet with teeth and all, feeling fake. She bent her head to hide it by playing with her potatoes, reminding herself that this was a necessary step to take in order to clear her name once everyone found out that Justin was "missing."

_Just smile and play nice, Alex_, she thought in between rough swallows. _Just tell them what you rehearsed_.

Max was chewing loudly with his fork hanging off his fingertips, tipping back and forth, glistening with the distractingly bright light that came in through the floor to ceiling terrace door window.

"Has anyone seen Justin lately? I wanted to tell him something," Max said, making his parents frown in thought.

"You know, I haven't seen him in a few days," Teresa said. "But I'm sure the next time he calls he'll ask for you. What did you want to tell him, anyways?"

"Oh, I just wanted to tell him that I decided to accept his request to be his best man." Max smiled, cheeks stuffed with food.

Jerry clapped his son on the back, beaming. "That's fantastic, son. He'll be glad to hear it."

Alex felt her insides churning and her head began spinning. Without much thought, she dropped the fork in her hand, leaving it to clank loudly against her plate. Her mother looked up in concern as Alex raised one hand to touch her forehead lightly, just above her eyebrow with her eyes closed tightly.

_He was getting married? To who? Since when?_ She clutched at her head, wildly turning in and out of focus.

"Alex," Teresa said, laying one hand on her daughter's thin wrist. "Is something wrong?"

"No," Alex tried, placing a thin smile on her face and clearing her throat as she let her hand drop to her lap. "I just have a migraine."

"Oh, I'm sorry, honey." Teresa pouted and rubbed Alex's arm for a few seconds before turning back to Max and congratulating him.

"Alex, when the last time you spoke to your brother?" Jerry asked. "You should call him up and congratulate him, I'm sure he'd love to hear your voice!"

"I most definitely will, dad. Just as soon as I get home. I wouldn't want to break up our dinner."

"That's nice, honey."

...

Alex was just bandaging her arm up and taking her pain meds when she felt a wave of nausea hit her. She bent over herself, clutching at her stomach and moaning until she laid back up on her black couch in her soon to be sold apartment. She'd left the knife on her coffee table made of glass, still shining fresh with blood. She winced when she rolled onto her side and onto her wounded arm, making sure to keep it above her on the pillow.

She felt drowsy when she stared off into space, into the complete darkness of her living room. Just as she began to drift off, she had one last fleeting image of Justin in her head, smiling his _'because I'm your brother' _smile and reaching out to hug her.

She let the waves of guilt and pain wash over her as she fell asleep.

---

When Alex awoke, light coming in from all sides of the room, she groaned. It couldn't have been morning quite yet, maybe just nearing sunrise, but all the same, Alex squinted and shielded her eyes with her right hand. Moving her arm that quickly (which wasn't very quickly at all) made her wince and she noticed the red coloring of her blood had seeped through her bandage and dried like that. It was lighter in some places and if she tried hard enough, she could picture it as ketchup, sitting innocently atop a hot dog at the sub station counter, waiting for someone to deliver it to a table.

Bending down to retrieve her favorite knife (she always had fond memories of it, being the first one she'd ever used, the one her mother had searched for for weeks after she'd taken it) and, trailing her hands over the cool glass, over a ratty edition of a spell book, and an issue of Vogue or two, she noticed that it wasn't where she'd last left it. In a sort of frenzy, Alex began searching faster, more frantically.

It wasn't anywhere in the living room and it wasn't mixed up with the rest of her cutlery in the kitchen drawers. It wasn't on her bedside table, in her hollowed out book behind her DVD collection, or lost somewhere beneath all of her velvety pillows and covers. It wasn't even in the small second bedroom/office (soon to be a torture chamber of sorts) and it definitely wasn't in the bathroom, not even tucked into her medicine cabinet.

By the time she had jogged past every door frame, ran around the corners of each room twice in a panic, and thrown every door wide open so it slammed back into a wall, she was breathing hard, hands on her knees, bending down to stare at her tiled flooring in the kitchen.

There might have been a noise or two, maybe just a small tap or creak in a floorboard somewhere inside, possible without Alex actually taking notice while she caught her breath and tried to relax the sore muscles in her arm and the dull pulsing ache in her head.

Then, while she was bent over her own kneecaps, there was a sharp shove coming from her right side, catching her arm in the process and knocking her onto the ground. Before she could even look up to rearrange her eyes to the new surroundings, there was a kick to her left side, digging into her ribs. She cried out, trying to rise out of her slouchy position on the floor while someone tugged her up roughly by her hair and pushed her into the sharp corners of her counter, keeping one hand on each of her upper arms.

Alex let out a moan, trying to clutch at her bloodied arm, now sporting a peeling off bandage. A lightly freckled hand made it's way to the wound and dug a pointy nail tip into it's core, pushing in. Alex screamed, feeling it re-open and begin to bleed again. Her hair, covering her eyes as she hung her head off to the side, was moved almost gently behind one ear and Alex looked up suddenly, feeling the finger remove itself from her flesh.

"Alex," a voice said quietly, sharply, and not in question form.

Alex's eyes widened when her head raised. She saw deep, dark eyes, fair skin, and shadowed auburn hair. For a second, the eyes up so close looked just like Justin's before he fell to the ground and died in front of her. Alex's heart sped up and she gasped when the person shook her, obviously waiting for some sort of a response.

"Harper?"

"Yeah?"

"What are you doing?"

"Right now, you mean?"

"Yes."

"Holding you against your will."

Alex breathed in a shaky breath and exhaled it equally uneasily. "Why?" she asked when Harper's grip hadn't loosened.

"Because _I know_," Harper stated, darkly emphasizing her words.

Alex didn't move, couldn't, while she stared at Harper, taking in her words without full understanding. "What are you talking about?"

"I _know_, Alex. I know what you did to Justin."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Alex mumbles, shaking her head back and forth with knit eyebrows, biting her bottom lip.

Harper's grip tightened and Alex bit back another whine.

"It's all your fault, Alex. You just couldn't stand how strong he was, how much more wonderful, intelligent, and wholesome he was. You always had to be better than him, didn't you? Couldn't just let him have his glory, could you?"

"Harper-"

"You took him from me, Alex! We were getting _married_! In six weeks, we would have been married. _Married! _Why can't you just let things be? Why do you always have to ruin everyone else's happiness to satisfy your selfishness?"

Alex just stared, unblinking.

Harper shook her, pushing Alex's back roughly against the counter top.

"I don't. Harper, you don't understand. Justin used me. He-"

"Alex, it's all over. You had your chance years ago to make up with him and _finally_ tell me that you approved of our relationship. Two years, Alex. We were engaged for two _years_ before he went to your place to tell you that with or without your approval, we were going to get married."

Alex was shocked. She had no idea what to say. Trapped, she tried to avoid Harper's knowing gaze by looking down at her feet, at the drops of blood scattering the tile.

Harper grabbed at Alex's chin and held it tight, lifting it back up and exposing her neck. Alex tried to squirm away, but Harper had closed in on her, and she wasn't letting go.

"You never deserved him as a brother. You never even deserved me as a friend for as long as I put up with you. But you know, I thought that maybe one day we would all get along. I thought that you'd get over your stupid infatuation with your brother and _let me have him already_. But you never did."

When Harper closed her palm over Alex's mouth, Alex tried to bite her, wanted to explain how Justin had tricked her and led her along all those years before, but no words came out as Harper took her hand away just long enough to slap Alex, sending her previously dull nausea and headache into automatic overdrive and making her woozy and wobbly on her feet. Staggering for balance, reaching out to grab onto her counter to keep from falling, she tripped over nothing, and landed miserably on her back.

She squirmed as Harper lunged at Alex, attempting to escape, but it was pointless. Her head spun in circles and her lungs were constricting. Her re-opened wound ached and throbbed and she could feel drops of blood still running along her wrist.

"You held on for too long and never let him go. And then, when you finally saw that he never wanted you, you ungrateful brat, you killed him. You slit his throat and left him somewhere alone to die, didn't you?"

Alex didn't say anything. If she had, it wouldn't have mattered. And she was sure that Harper didn't want to hear about how she had done worse than leave him with a chance of survival, how she'd actually seen the color leave Justin's eyes.

"You used this knife to do it too, didn't you? The one that you stole from your mother?"

Harper, out of nowhere, had pulled her favorite dagger out and had it looming over Alex's chest threateningly.

"I saw the marks, you know. When you started to cut yourself you told me that the band-aids were from paper cuts, like I was some idiot. And you told me that your wore sweaters in the summer because your apartment always had the air conditioner on too high. You told me that the wristbands were in style and that the stacked bracelets were too. You cut yourself because you wanted your brother and he never wanted you back. And now, I can finally do something about it. I can finally end this for Justin, the way he would have wanted it to end for you."

"Harper, please let me explain," Alex pleaded, using the same voice that had always worked before, always worked on Justin.

"You had your chance, Alex," Harper ground out, pressing her self firmly down on Alex's body to keep her pinned. "Now, it's my chance. And I won't let it pass me by."

Harper raised Alex's dagger high, lips thin, eyes wild, and snarled before she began to bring it down on Alex's heart.


End file.
